November 21, 2012

During the 2000 recount in Florida, I recall getting a press release from a Sikh-American association pointing out that Sikhs had no doubt tipped the balance of the Presidential election. There were X thousand Sikhs in Florida and they had voted heavily for one candidate or the other because that guy had endorsed the Sikh demand for an exemption from laws mandating motorcycle helmets (because Sikhs have to wear turbans). (Motorcycle helmet laws have been a perpetual issue for Sikhs all around the world.) Or maybe they voted against the guy who had called for helmets. I can't remember, but I do remember their math was pretty accurate.

So, therefore, the press release concluded, Sikhs elected the President in 2000.

... Not unexpectedly, the Hispanic vote was also not decisive in Iowa or New Hampshire where Mr. Obama could have carried the states even if he had won none of the Hispanic vote whatsoever.

In Ohio, where the president received an estimated 54 percent of the Hispanic vote, according to exit poll data, we find he could have won the state with as little as 22 percent of the Hispanic vote, and in Virginia, where he received 64 percent of the Hispanic vote, we find that he could have carried the state with just over 33 percent.

It is also worth noting that in states that were not considered battleground territory, Mr. Obama could still have won without a majority of the Hispanic vote. In California, Mr. Obama took the state’s 55 electoral votes with 72 percent of the Hispanic vote, but could have won with as little as 25 percent. And in Pennsylvania (20 electoral votes), where Mr. Obama received an estimated 80 percent of the Hispanic vote, he could have still carried the state with just over 37 percent.

With these five swing states, along with the safe Democratic states that Mr. Obama should have carried regardless of the Hispanic vote, the president would have reached 283 electoral votes, winning the Electoral College without needing to win a majority of the Hispanic vote in each state.

In the remaining swing states – Nevada, Florida and Colorado – along with New Mexico, Mr. Obama did require a majority of the Hispanic votes cast in order to carry those states, although the shares he achieved still exceeded the threshold minimums he needed. In Colorado, where Mr. Obama received an estimated 75 percent of the Hispanic vote, we estimate that he could have won with just over 58 percent, and in Nevada, where he won 71 percent of the Hispanic vote, he could have carried the state with just under 54 percent. In the key battleground of Florida (29 electoral votes), Mr. Obama’s 60 percent share of the Hispanic vote was just above the 58 percent share required for victory in that state.

In New Mexico, Florida, Nevada and Colorado, slightly higher shares (but still less than a majority) of the Hispanic vote could have swung them to Mr. Romney, and this may well put these states in play in the next election if the Republican candidate and platform have broader appeal among Hispanic voters.

A big fraction of Hispanic voters are in blue California and red Texas. Florida is a purple state, but the number of Hispanics there who care all that much about amnesty in a family way are limited.

Which brings us to our second question: Would a revamping of the Republicans’ immigration policy be sufficient to cause Hispanics to shift to the Republican Party?

The exit poll results suggest that the Republicans’ assertion that Hispanics are socially conservative is not necessarily true.

Two-thirds of Hispanic voters said that abortion should be legal in most or all cases, compared with slightly more than half of white voters, according to exit poll results. Hispanics were also more liberal when it came to same-sex marriage, with 59 percent saying it should be legal in their state, compared with 51 percent of blacks and 47 percent of white voters.

Exit poll results also indicate that Hispanics are not necessarily racing to adopt the Republican platform of smaller government. Nearly 6 in 10 Hispanics said Mr. Obama’s health care law should be expanded or left as is, compared to about a third of white voters. And 57 percent of Hispanics said that government should be doing more to solve the problems of individuals, compared to 36 percent of whites. Hispanics, like the rest of the electorate, were also in favor of raising income taxes in order to reduce the federal deficit.
So for any Republicans crafting a strategy that focuses solely on Hispanic voters and immigration policy in order to win back the White House in 2016, they may want to re-examine this year’s exit poll results.

78 comments:

As I pointed out in another thread, Jeb Bush, the most Hispanic-friendly member of the GOP, peaked at 56% of the non-Cuban Hispanic vote in a fairly easy reelection bid in 2004. So it's probably safe to say that 56% is the highest a Republican can expect to get even if he does everything he's being told to do as Hispanic outreach. Push for amnesty, bilingual education, in-state tuition for illegals, and every other goodie they can think of, and you might hit 56%.

It's clear that 56% wouldn't have gotten Romney the win. Would it have gotten him a single additional electoral vote?

There were X thousand Sikhs in Florida and they had voted heavily for one candidate or the other because that guy had endorsed the Sikh demand for an exemption from laws mandating motorcycle helmets (because Sikhs have to wear turbans). (Motorcycle helmet laws have been a perpetual issue for Sikhs all around the world.)

I support the Sikhs on this issue, for a different reason. Government has no right to force people to wear helmets (or seatbelts, or airbags) for their own safety. That is just Big Brother tyranny, and dysgenic too.

The difference this time around was conservatives of all stripes who stayed home, not the Hispanic vote. Romney ran a weak campaign against an embattled president and moved too far to the left. The RNC screw job done to Ron Paul likely cost Romney Colorado and Nevada, and possibly other states where the margin of loss was under 3%.

If a politician in a very close election wins by 20 votes, and it turns out that 80 Tibetan-Americans out of a total of 100 voted for him, one could argue that the Tibetan-American vote was 'pivotal'. But then, it can be said of just about any group no matter how small in a very tight election. There lies the fallacy.

It would be silly for politicians to conclude that they must especially pander to the Tibetan-American community(composed of a total of 100 voters) in future elections since that group happened to be so 'pivotal'. This sort of thing is often a media mirage based on selective coverage and spin.

I don't know if I agree with the hamster rationalization on HBD blogs that the Hispanic vote doesn't count. If the Republicans can't win Colorado, Nevada, and Florida due to increases the Hispanic vote, then winning the Presidency becomes much harder for the GOP.

Oh, well. The Republican party needs to lose in 2016 in order to really wake up. Another loss in 4 years could be a good thing...a very good thing indeed.

Sikhs in the UK during the 70s managed to win exemption when compulsory motorcycle helmets came into effect for everyone else (as part of the same movement that brought in legally compulsory seat belt usage). And Sikhs also have the right to bear the sacred dagger/sword (the kirpan) in public - possession of any such article by a non-Sikh who cannot show a sound reason for it will result in a substantial jail sentence. During the intense security arrangements of the recent London Olympics, Sikhs could enter the venues bearing the kirpan unmolested. Utilitarian arguments apparently cease to work when up against the absolute rules of religious ethnic minorities.

BTW: Karl Rove must know all of these facts about what the Hispanic mass really believes. As a professional political campaigner he reads these sort of studies constantly.

pennsylvania is not a swing state. pennsylvania is not up for grabs, and a republican candidate will never win pennsylvania again. maybe if people studied this stuff they would understand, but clearly they don't.

pennsylvania votes exactly the same as california. it hasn't voted for the republican since 1988. which was exactly the last time california voted for the republican. both states have voted for the democrat every election since 1992. that's 20 years and 6 elections of not being a swing state.

does anybody think california is a swing state? of course not. so why does anybody think pennsylvania is a swing state? IT'S NOT.

in presidential elections, pennsylvania is a state the democrat automatically wins before the campaign even starts. like california, new york, and illinois, it goes directly in their pocket before the race is run.

when GW bush was elected in 2000, he lost pennsylvania. when GW bush was re-elected with 62 million votes in 2004, the most votes a republican has ever received, and 2 million more votes than mccain or romney got, HE LOST PENNSYLVANIA.

it has nothing to do with mexicans, and everything to do with millions of africans in philadelphia voting 99% democrat every time.

Hmmm, not really convinced. Look at it another way. Even if you count Michigan and Pennsylvania as toss ups, the Democrats start out with about 196 electoral votes sewn up. The article states that the Hispanic vote proved decisive in states worth 49 electoral votes, in other words, over 2/3 of the total votes that Obama actually needed to fight for. That seems awfully consequential to me.

Now let's say that the next Republican nominee does a better job of getting white votes in Ohio, Pennsylvania, etc. Well if growing numbers of Hispanics continue to vote Democratic in similar proportions, then their votes in these states will likely become decisive.

Sorry, the Hispanic vote is really important, and will only get more important in the future. A "Sailer strategy" might pull out a win in 2016, if the economy is bad or there's some other crisis, but somewhere around 2024 the numbers for the Republicans, as least for the Republican Party as it exists today, become hopeless without some radical change in the mood and opinions of the electorate.

now, where the votes of our new vibrant americans do matter is in a state like florida. so yes, their votes can have a huge effect on the election. and florida seems to have a big effect on every election now. so their increasing percentage of the electorate in florida will play an increasing role in whether republicans will even be competitive in a national election (they won't).

by the way, it looks like mitt romney will end up with more votes than john mccain. mccain got 59.9 million votes in 2008, and romney is at 59.9 million votes and still climbing as the counting goes on. so much for the meme about voters staying home.

59.9 million votes is 9.5 million more votes than the 50.4 million votes which put GW bush into the white house in 2000. so romney did not do bad.

the best republican performance ever remains GW bush in 2004 and his 62.0 million votes. so we can see that about 61, 62 million votes is now the ceiling for a republican candidate. the US ain't adding more republicans. it's adding more democrats.

well, that loses to obama in 2008 or 2012. obama got 69.4 million votes in 2008 and 64.0 million votes in 2012. more than enough to safely defeat any republican challenger at any time in history.

they say things like "well, even reagan would have lost this election, shows how much the country has changed" but it's more dramatic than that. it's more accurate to say the republicans could have run george washington in 2008 and he would have lost.

it doesn't matter who the republicans run from now on. they're losing and losing big to the democrats, every election from this point forward. the electoral college insures this. if the republican has to win the popular vote by 2% or 3% to just barely beat the democrat in the electoral college, then this united states 2 party election thing is over.

which is exactly what i've been saying. it's definitely, definitely over. the republican candidate will never be getting the 65 million votes or whatever he needs to win in 2016. they're topped out at about 60, 61 million votes.

"But what if they ran (fill in the blank with your pet candidate)". no, just no. there's no need to play armchair quarterback and say this candidate would have done better, that candidate would have done better. romney did pretty good and that's about the best you can expect against the massive armies of the liberals now.

Why not just have a direct vote for the president? The electoral college is badly flawed and distorts the voting process. Take California for example. Say one candidate gets ONE SINGLE MORE VOTE then his opponent, he wins all 55 of them.

I support the Sikhs on this issue, for a different reason. Government has no right to force people to wear helmets (or seatbelts, or airbags) for their own safety. That is just Big Brother tyranny, and dysgenic too.

That should have said, "I support the Sikhs, and everyone else who refuses to wear a helmet."

The Republican party needs to lose in 2016 in order to really wake up. Another loss in 4 years could be a good thing...a very good thing indeed.

Heck, why stop there? If losing in 2012 was good and losing in 2016 will be even better, then losing in 2020 as well will be fantabulous! In fact, you know what will be REALLY good for the GOP? Losing all its House and Senate seats as well!

Sweet Jesus, there are some pathologically stupid people commenting here.

Exit poll results also indicate that Hispanics are not necessarily racing to adopt the Republican platform of smaller government. Nearly 6 in 10 Hispanics said Mr. Obama’s health care law should be expanded or left as is, compared to about a third of white voters. And 57 percent of Hispanics said that government should be doing more to solve the problems of individuals, compared to 36 percent of whites. Hispanics, like the rest of the electorate, were also in favor of raising income taxes in order to reduce the federal deficit.

Everybody in the country knows this stuff except for the Republican party "elite", which continues to stubbornly insist that "Hispanics are natural Republicans!"

"Heck, why stop there? If losing in 2012 was good and losing in 2016 will be even better, then losing in 2020 as well will be fantabulous! In fact, you know what will be REALLY good for the GOP? Losing all its House and Senate seats as well!"

I just meant that the GOP needs another loss to really wake them up.

Right now, the GOP is talking about how they just need to make a few changes here and there to win in 2016. This is crazy talk. The GOP needs to substantially change their message & policies to win in the future. For instance, Steve's "Big Ten" strategy will not be viable for the GOP until they make changes to their standard talking points regarding abortion, unions, and taxing the rich.

I checked all of the exits pools I could find after November 6th. Only one state was close enough and had enough Hispanic voters for the Hispanic vote to matter.

That was Florida. Florida was very close and has lots of Hispanic voters. If Romney had reached Bush's shared of the Hispanic vote, he would have carried the state. The same does NOT hold for Colorado, New Mexico, and Nevada. Obama's winning margin was just too large.

What most folks don't realize is that very few states were close and that getting 40% of the Hispanic vote (Bush 2004) doesn't help you much versus Romney get 27%.

"Why not just have a direct vote for the president? The electoral college is badly flawed and distorts the voting process. Take California for example. Say one candidate gets ONE SINGLE MORE VOTE then his opponent, he wins all 55 of them."

That's a genuinely dangerous idea. Why? The recount would never stop. America could directly elect the President. However, careful rules are needed to avoid a Florida 2000 debacle on a national scale.

What the article actually said is that Republicans would have to win absurd majorities of the Hispanic vote to carry the states in question.

Obviously that's not going to happen.

The practical question is whether the Republicans should dream about getting 40% of Hispanic vote and support Amnesty, or try to oppose mass immigration altogether to slow / stop their demographic erosion.

Given that the Reagan Amnesty triggered a significant shift in the Hispanic vote away (yes, away) from the Republicans, the answer is pretty obvious.

"Sorry, the Hispanic vote is really important, and will only get more important in the future. A "Sailer strategy" might pull out a win in 2016, if the economy is bad or there's some other crisis, but somewhere around 2024 the numbers for the Republicans, as least for the Republican Party as it exists today, become hopeless without some radical change in the mood and opinions of the electorate."

The Hispanic vote is important to the GOP, but only in terms of permanently removing the ability of the GOP to get elected again. History proves that no amount of hispandering will change the percentage of Hispanics who vote GOP. The only way to fight it is refusal to lower immigration, refuse amnesty, and active deportation.

These analyses assume that white voter behavior does not change. But notice that even the majority of 18 to 24-year-olds voted for Romney, I think that's a change from the past.

If that's the wave of the future maybe whites will vote 75% Republican just as minorities now vote 75% for the Democrats. In that case Republicans will win for quite a while. Well, probably they will have to continue to mostly nominate white candidates. And I suppose they might not do that.

"I don't know if I agree with the hamster rationalization on HBD blogs that the Hispanic vote doesn't count. If the Republicans can't win Colorado, Nevada, and Florida due to increases the Hispanic vote, then winning the Presidency becomes much harder for the GOP."

The Hispanic vote does count. The larger the Hispanic vote, the worse off Republicans will be.

What doesn't count is the GOP establishment strategy of trying to win a slightly larger marginal share of the Hispanic vote by allowing open borders.

I support the Sikhs on this issue, for a different reason. Government has no right to force people to wear helmets (or seatbelts, or airbags) for their own safety. That is just Big Brother tyranny, and dysgenic too.

I support them too, however I also support the right of the people not to be replaced by uninvited incomers which I rather suspect would find the Sikhs back home in India.

There is something missing from this discussion. Bush didn't win the popular vote in 2000 and only succeeded in 2004 because of 9-11. However, he did do better than the Republicans before (Bush Sr., Dole) and the Republicans since (McCain, Romney). There is no question that Bush's policies and rhetoric were politically more attractive than other modern Republicans. The key question is whether Bush's political tactics (policies) constituted a useful governing philosophy.

Bush's approach to government amounted goodies for everyone, with no one expected to pay for anything. Hispanics got full-on pandering including over support for bilingualism, Open Borders and the promise of Amnesty. The rich got tax cuts paid for by nothing. Corporations got cheap labor, "free" trade, and unlimited outsourcing. The poor got food stamps. The elderly got Medicare Plan D. People concerned with education go the NCLB mirage. Construction workers and the middle class go the housing bubble. The aspiring got illusions about the "ownership society". Wall Street got the license to kill (America) via financial deregulation. Neocons got fantasy wars to "democratically transform the Middle East".

It was all very nice and popular. Handouts (of one form or another) for everyone. It even politically worked (briefly). As I have stated Bush may have never won an election other than by accident, but he did do better than other Republicans.

However, it was a substantive disaster and a massive one. In real life, Bush failed at home, abroad, and on the border. He didn't just fail a little, he failed on a scale unmatched by any president since Hoover (Truman was actually less popular when he left office).

Why did Bush fail? It was all based on the idea that something for nothing actually works. Open Borders flooded America with poor people naturally aligned with the Democrats. Americans (of all races) were relentlessly forced out of the labor force (even before the Crash of 2008). The pool of committed Democrats expanded steadily. The Bush tax cuts did nothing for growth but expanded the national debt. Bush's philosophy of outsourcing every job gutted the U.S. economy (and gave the Midwest to Obama). Bush's determination to replace every American worker with a cheaper immigrant crushed millions of workers who might have voted Republican in 2008 and 2012. Food stamp dependency exploded under Bush creating at least 14 million "natural Democrats". Medicare Plan D was never paid for (and still isn't) expanding the deficit. NCLB failed (Congress can't mandate achievement any more than it can change the Golden Ratio) but expanded Federal education spending.

Financial deregulation and the housing bubble ended with the worst crash since 1929. The economy has yet to recover and voters have yet to forgive the Republicans. Why should they? How many Republicans have even admitted that Bush's policies brought down America?

Of course, Bush's foreign wars were a debacle. A long story and beyond the scope of these comments. However, only a very delusional person could have ever thought that Iraq was a likely candidate for creating a liberal democratic nation committed to human rights, the rule of law, a market economy, peace with Israel, and amenable to large, permanent U.S. bases. It sounded nice, but ended in ruin. Of course, that was the norm for Bush.

"pennsylvania is not a swing state. pennsylvania is not up for grabs, and a republican candidate will never win pennsylvania again. maybe if people studied this stuff they would understand, but clearly they don't."

"pennsylvania votes exactly the same as california. it hasn't voted for the republican since 1988. which was exactly the last time california voted for the republican. both states have voted for the democrat every election since 1992. that's 20 years and 6 elections of not being a swing state."

You don't know what you're talking about.

California and Pennsylvania do not vote exactly the same. While California and Pennsylvania have both voted for the Democratic presidential candidate since the 1992 election, the Democratic margin of victory in the state out west has been much higher than in the state back east.

in 1996, CA voted for Clinton by 13 points; PA voted for Clinton by less than ten.

In 1992, CA voted for Clinton by 14 points; PA voted for Clinton by nine.

*****

The evidence is clear. California is a deep blue state which has gotten more blue over the last two decades as demographic changes have worked against Republicans. PA is a blue state which has become slightly more competitive for Republicans over the last two decades and in which demographic changes have played a small role in the state's politics.

A smart strategy for Republicans would be to go after states like PA and other Rust Belt and midwestern states, where Republicans can at least see a potential victory and where the state demography isn't greatly different from the 1980s, when the GOP last consistently won PA.

My point about Rove meant to emphasize that if he talks about Hispanics being overwhelmingly in favour of conservative positions, he's lying because he knows from these surveys that it isn't true. He may very well want more Hispanics in the USA for the imagined economic benefits. He tries to sell it to many of his fellow conservatives on a quite different and false basis.

On the issue of Sikh exemptions, it demonstrates that the attainment of these privileges on the part of an ethnic minority (in 1973 here in the UK) has nothing necessarily to do with their ability to swing elections in terms of votes. The UK currently has about 750,000 Sikhs and likely had far fewer back when this law was passed almost 40 years ago. White British non-Sikh MPs voted through the special rights of this ethnic minority group. (the same way white Congressman passed the 1965 Immigration act and did not depend on Hispanic votes). None of these men would have lost their seat in Parliament if they had opposed it. They did it because they felt personal sympathy for the minority concerned.

The hispanic vote in Florida is about 1/3 Cuban, 1/3 Puerto Rican, and 1/3 everything else. The standard way to pander to hispanics (promising amnesty or easing of immigration restrictions) mostly just doesn't apply to either of those groups, so that sort of pandering probably can only appeal to that 1/3 of other origin.

I suspect the GOP loses with Cubans and Puerto Ricans to the extent that Republican politicians and media types come off as generally anti-immigrant or anti-hispanic. But otherwise, how much can you learn about Republican appeals (or pandering) to hispanics in other states from the unusual mix of hispanics in Florida?

"pennsylvania is not up for grabs, and a republican candidate will never win pennsylvania again."

Obama won PA by 287,865 votes (All these numbers from CNN, with 98% reported). 78% of the voters were white, for a total of 4,311,084, Romney getting 2,457,317 (57%) and Obama getting 1,810,655 (42%). For Romney to win, he would've had to get 143,933 white voters away from Obama. That would've given Romney a total of 2,601,250 white votes, or 60.3%.

Is that really so impossible? Assume PA's Hispanic population increases a bit in the next four years, so the next GOP candidate needs 61-62% of the white vote to win there. It still seems quite possible. No, not if the GOP continues to be (and lets the media portray it as) the party of CEOs and banksters, but a "heartland" candidate with a little working-class in his background, who talks about bringing back American jobs and reaches out to private sector union workers (which can be done without capitulating to the unions) should be able to hit that mark.

"Yes, Florida would have tipped to Romney. Probably New Mexico as well.

"Obama would still be president."

Exactly. To repeat: if Romney had gotten the best result any GOP candidate has ever gotten with Hispanics, he still would've lost by a good margin. And that's before subtracting the white votes that greater Hispandering surely would have cost him.

By the way, Romney got about 60,000 Hispanic votes in PA (18% of 6% of the total) and 50,000 black votes (7% of 13%). So he could have conceded *all* those votes to Obama, gotten 0% of the Hispanic and black vote, and still only would have needed to bump his percentage of the white vote up to 63% to win.

If the GOP were a corporation selling a product, and they were looking at one large demographic that already likes their product fairly well but needs some convincing, or two much smaller demographics that have never liked it much even when it's been marketed heavily to them, this would be a no-brainer.

A "Sailer strategy" might pull out a win in 2016, if the economy is bad or there's some other crisis, but somewhere around 2024 the numbers for the Republicans, as least for the Republican Party as it exists today, become hopeless without some radical change in the mood and opinions of the electorate."

The Republicans are already in the fix they're in because of a radical change in the electorate - the actual make-up of the electorate, not because of that electorate's opinions.

I was surprised that Obama only got 54% of the latino vote in Ohio. Could there perhaps be a correlation between the black population in a state and the propensity of latinos to have voted for Obama? I.e., the more they are exposed to blacks, the less inclined they are to vote for a black President?

"But what if they ran (fill in the blank with your pet candidate)". no, just no. there's no need to play armchair quarterback and say this candidate would have done better, that candidate would have done better. romney did pretty good and that's about the best you can expect against the massive armies of the liberals now."

I agree re: candidates. It's not the candidate, it's the policies. The GOP got a tepid 59% of the white vote because there was nothing in it for them.

As Cail Corishev remarked, think of it like a marketing exercise. Only in politics is there such a stupid dominant viewpoint that you can offer people crap (in order to chase minority swing voters) and expect them to lap it up. GOP strategists are stuck back in the mindset of US auto industry executives in the 1970s, except it's votes rather than money they are after.

1970s US auto industry: "We've got a captive market, so we'll just treat the average American like an imbecile and expect them to buy cheaply produced crap that breaks down all the time but increases our spare part sales. He has to have a car, what else will he drive?"

(Answer: A Japanese car)

2012 GOP strategists: "We've got a captive market, so we'll just treat the white voter like an imbecile and expect them to vote for a party that caters to 1% of the population, while shafting the average white voter through AA, immigration, outsourcing and amnesty. He has to vote for someone, who else can he vote for?"

Why not just have a direct vote for the president? The electoral college is badly flawed and distorts the voting process. Take California for example. Say one candidate gets ONE SINGLE MORE VOTE then his opponent, he wins all 55 of them.

First, besides the fact it is in our Constitution and would require an amendment, most nations do not have a national vote for their leader. For example, in the UK the PM runs as a member of parliament, and just the constituents in his district vote for him. He only becomes PM if his party wins a majority of seats.

Second, a nationwide vote would open up the gates to fraud. Think about this. In 2000, Gore was touted as having won the popular vote though he lost the electoral vote. Gore's nationwide popular vote margin was about 544,000 votes.

However, in Chicago, Cook County, IL, Gore's margin of victory was approximately 746,000. That is not how many votes Gore won, that was his margin of victory in just Cook County, IL.

This means excluding Cook County (Chicago), Bush won the nationwide popular vote in 2000. Now everyone who follows politics knows that Chicago is famous for vote fraud. Even today democrats fondly joke about how the "dead" voted for Kennedy in 1960.

Now because of the electoral college system, the extent of any fraud in Chicago stopped at the Illinois border. Yes, it meant Gore won Illinois' electoral vote, but that was the extent of it. Under the electoral college system, fraud can still happen but you would have to pull it off in several locations. If we had the direct vote in 2000, Chicago alone would have handed the race to Gore.

Of course I understand that my argument would be more apppropiate to a nation that no longer exists. A nation where an 88% white population is prepared to vote for either party in any given election depending upon how each party is performing.

In current and future America, where the increasing non-white electorate votes in bloc fashion along tribal lines, any pretense of a contested election will be gone. Regardless of going by a popular vote or electoral vote, the tribal guys will win when they achieve the necessary critical mass.

"Actually, no. Reagan got 64% of the white vote in 1984. That would have been enough for Romney to win in 2012."

reagan was the incumbent in 1984, so that bumped up his totals. he only got 60% in 1980, when he was the new guy. so compare apples to apples. romney was the new guy and did about as well as reagan in 1980.

reagan wouldn't have gotten 64% of the white vote in 2012. that's the main point. this isn't the same country.

what was the marriage rate 28 years ago? you can immediately cut 2 points off the republican share of the white vote right there. white women steadily move into the democrat column as time moves forward. they don't get married, they become childless middle aged women now, or, they become single moms. the conversion of white women into the democrat column is inexorable.

what's another 28 years of liberal brainwashing in our public schools and universities and television programming worth? another 2 points? liberal brainwashing steadily moves whites into the democrat column as well.

2+2? bam. back down towards romney's 59 percent.

you guys seem to think the 2012 united states would actually vote for the founding fathers today, let alone guys like reagan. well, the citizens of the 2012 united states emphatically reject those guys. they have elected, then re-elected, an unqualified, openly anti-american, openly racist, socialist, marxist, innumerate, lying, ass covering affirmative action lawyer. the US is worse off under him than it was 4 years ago, yet america signed up for another 4 years.

in other words, year 2012 citizens aren't buying the original american idea anymore. they wouldn't be interested in what reagan was selling, and they aren't at all interested in what ron paul is selling. ron paul would have been absolutely crushed in the general election.

they have elected, then re-elected, an unqualified, openly anti-american, openly racist, socialist, marxist, innumerate, lying, ass covering affirmative action lawyer. the US is worse off under him than it was 4 years ago, yet america signed up for another 4 years.

Good grief.

Obama is not significantly different from Bush, and Romney wouldn't have been significantly different from Obama. Obama is not a "Marxist" and if you think the billionaires who basically created him, funded his campaign, and promoted him in their media want to abolish private property, then you're an idiot.

98% of people vote based purely on superficial characteristics of the candidates. Most Democrats don't even like what their own party does if you tell them that the Republicans are actually the ones doing it, and vice versa. There's lots of evidence that shows that clearly.

I don't give a rat's ass about who wins these elections, but as far as the Hispanic Republican thing goes, if nominating a Latino candidate would allow them to get 75% of the Hispanic vote while not losing any of the White vote (which may or may not be possible), then it would be a smart move for the GOP. It seems like you guys are afraid of the possibility that this might actually work and that your delusions of the Republican Party as some great defender of White America might be dashed than anything else.

"But what if they ran (fill in the blank with your pet candidate)". no, just no. there's no need to play armchair quarterback and say this candidate would have done better, that candidate would have done better. romney did pretty good and that's about the best you can expect against the massive armies of the liberals now."

I suspect you are right. A lot Paul supporter thought (still think) that if only he had been given a fair shake, he would have sewed-up the nomination and swept to victory. This is obvious nonsense. I voted for Paul in the primary. I liked alot of what he stands for (not all, but alot). I wish he had gone further, just so as to introduce some of his topics into the national forum. And he did get shafted by the Republican party. But even if they hadn't treated him like the retarded child at the family dinner, he still wouldn't have won.

Why not just have a direct vote for the president? The electoral college is badly flawed and distorts the voting process. Take California for example. Say one candidate gets ONE SINGLE MORE VOTE then his opponent, he wins all 55 of them."

what you advocate here would be disastrous for the Republican party. It would be disastrous for convervatives. A direct popular vote for President would insure that small states (like Wyoming, etc.) would have no say whatsoever in electing a President (they already have almost no say as it is).

If the office of President were decided by national popular vote, then the Democrats would win it forever more for certain. They would only have to cater to their constituents in the major population centers (look at one of those red/blue maps broken down into voting precincts to see what I mean). And those concentration of population are also the major media markets, meaning it would be relatively cheap and easy for the Democrats to buy advertising that would reach their voters - much more expensive for the Republicans to reach theirs. Very easy for the Democrats to mount their get-out-the-vote efforts. Much more difficult for the Republicans.

The Democrats wouldn't even have to pretend that they care what middle class white people think or think of them. Their TV ads could be in Spanish, Somali, Hindi, and Tagalog. They could get Snoop-Dogg, Ru-Paul, Michael Moore, and Sandra Bernhardt to do their campaign spots.

they have elected, then re-elected, an unqualified, openly anti-american, openly racist, socialist, marxist, innumerate, lying, ass covering affirmative action lawyer. the US is worse off under him than it was 4 years ago, yet america signed up for another 4 years.

Obama is not significantly different than Bush, and Romney wouldn't have been significantly different from Obama. I hate to be the one to break this to you, but it really does not matter who wins these elections.

98% of people vote based on the candidates' superficial characteristics. Most Democrats don't even like what their party does if you tell them that it's the Republicans doing it, and vice versa. There's lots of evidence showing that.

wrong. i've posted about this several times now. i'm from pennsylvania, so i'm pretty sure i know this stuff. when i was considering west point, my senator endorsement was going to be from arlen specter. i saw rick santorum speak in person over 10 years ago, before anybody here heard of him.

please see my previous posts about how pennsylvania is mostly a well run red state where intelligent, responsible adults are still elected governor and senator. it has the highest high school graduation rate of the 6 big states. ed rendell screwed things up for a while, but they finally got him out of there, although it might take a while to undo some of the damage he did.

in presidential elections however, pennsylvania always votes for the democrat now. please, spare me the numbers. how is it that if the numbers are kind of close, the state goes democrat 6 times in a row? statistically, wouldn't it have gone red once by now if the numbers were kind of close?

flip a coin 6 times, odds of it coming up tails 6 times in a row is 1 in 64. so what you're saying is that if we flip this pennsylvania coin one more time in 2016, it will come up heads? nah. it's gonna come up tails again.

1 in 64 chance of 6 tails in a row? our real life data makes it look like pennsylvania is not actually at coin flip odds here. in fact, it looks like a GUARANTEED DEMOCRAT VICTORY, is what it looks like.

obama gets to insult the state. talking about going into small towns in pennsylvania and they're full of white losers clinging to their guns and religion. then he gets to cut jobs in the coal industry. then he gets re-elected by pennsylvania. that's how this works, mr "you don't know what you're talking about." the democrat gets to insult and attack the state, then they vote for him again.

If nominating a Latino candidate would allow the GOP to get 75% or so of the Latino vote without losing too much of the White vote, then they could pick up California and Pennsylvania and win the next election. It sounds to me like you guys are more afraid of the fact that this might actually work, and that your fantasy of the Republican party as the great defender of White America would finally be dashed for good, than anything else.

if such a thing were possible, i'd bet BIG, BIG money that pennsylvania will vote for the democrat again in 2016. i'd bet 100,000 dollars, easily. that's how confident i am that PA is not a swing state and that a republican will never win it again.

here's how a money line would look for pennsylvania in the 2016 election, if there was a book that took bets on such things:

votes for the republican +700votes for the democrat -1500

something like that. a colossal spread, approaching but not quite reaching the limit of betting lines. it's a bet they still might take if they thought they could get fools, er, i mean, republican political strategists, to deliver action. the house wouldn't take bets on california, new york, illinois.

pennsylvania is going blue in 2016 NO MATTER WHAT. no matter what magical candidate you guys think the republicans should run, no matter what magical issues you think the republicans should drop or pick up.

20 electoral votes in the democrat candidate's pocket. book it, bank on it, bet the house on it.

mexicans flooding into nevada helped flip it. i know because i was there from 2002 to 2006, during the peak of the housing bubble.

the increase in brazen mexicans during the GW bush "flood america with mexicans!" years was staggering. this is when illegal aliens hit me and gave me a concussion and an $18,000 hospital bill. for 12 hours in the hospital. because that's what they have to charge now to try to recoup the losses from the bottomless waves of mexicans using the ER.

that wasn't the only thing which flipped nevada though. people escaping los angeles were coming into vegas by the thousands, every month. anybody living in a state adjacent to california knows what that means.

nevada is well run by republicans, harry reid aside, and has no state income tax.

Several posters read my comment on the importance of the Hispanic vote to mean I supported a Republican push for Hispanic votes. No, I was just saying the Republican position is increasingly hopeless. I don't entertain any fantasies of the next candidate being able to swing a lot of Hispanic voters to the Republican party, not unless the party itself swings dramatically to the left.

The big question is not whether the Republicans should try to win x percent of the Hispanic vote, but what effect the growth in Hispanic voters, whose political opinions are fairly well set to the Left, has on Republican prospects. In this election, Hispanic voters were necessary for wins in Nevada, Florida, New Mexico, and Colorado, or 49 of the 73 electoral votes that Obama needed to secure in addition to his secure base of 197 votes. In the next election, Hispanic votes will be an even greater share of the votes in these states, meaning, they become even harder for Republicans to win.

More importantly, any talk of a strategy to win more whites must still take into account the hurdle Republicans have to overcome in the Hispanic vote. Let's say Republicans significantly increase their share of the white vote, putting Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Virginia into play. Well that dramatically increases the likelihood of Hispanics becoming the deciding votes in those states.

Look at it this way. In each election, it is likely that the Hispanic vote will only prove decisive in a few states, however, with Democrats already having so many votes secure, even swinging a few states has a decisive impact. In 2008 and 2012, the Hispanic vote secured most of the extra electoral votes that the Democrats needed, but the Democrats got even more than they needed – so we say that the Hispanic vote wasn't "decisive". But let's say 2016 is tougher year for Democrats, and that Republicans win an even higher percentage of the white vote. Well then the Hispanic vote will likely prove critical in New Mexico, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Virginia - which are 56 votes out of the 73 Democrats need from their secure base. The Democrats can then win the election by just winning Florida (which will have even more Hispanic voters in the next election) or a couple of these other states – Michigan, Iowa, Wisconsin, New Hampshire, Nevada, and Colorado.

To talk about the difference between 60 or 70 percent of the Hispanic vote is relatively unimportant. The important point is that if such large numbers of Hispanics weren't in the country in the first place, the Democrats wouldn't be nearly as likely to win the elections. As the Hispanic population grows, Republican prospects get dimmer and dimmer, and the likelihood of a Sailer strategy proving successful smaller and smaller.

If the GOP makes more of an effort to win the white striving classes (small business owners, working class, middle class), then I would expect to see more Hispanic GOP votes too. Let's not forget that there are also Hispanic strivers - just maybe not that many.

Mr Anon - And those concentration of population are also the major media markets, meaning it would be relatively cheap and easy for the Democrats to buy advertising that would reach their voters - much more expensive for the Republicans to reach theirs.

Much TV output is blatantly anti-Republican, pro-liberal. Thus Democrats dont have to overtly outspend at all. In fact my pet theory is that since many shows espouse racial egalitarianism, the wonders of immigration, the stupidity of white men, the wonders of gay marriage, the stupidity of Christians etc etc that pro-Republican TV ads appearing in the midst of that are actually counter-productive, the jarring dissonance is so great. And as a bonus Democrats get to bleat about those rich Republicans trying to buy votes.

"If nominating a Latino candidate would allow the GOP to get 75% or so of the Latino vote without losing too much of the White vote, then they could pick up California and Pennsylvania and win the next election. It sounds to me like you guys are more afraid of the fact that this might actually work, and that your fantasy of the Republican party as the great defender of White America would finally be dashed for good, than anything else."

It's you who are living in a deluded fantasy land; minority GOP candidates don't appreciably increase the Republicans' share of the minority vote by any more than a point or two. Running a Republican Hispanic for President would, at best, net the GOP 36% or perhaps 37% of the Latino vote instead of the average 35%.

Look at Ted Cruz vs Rick Perry in Texas in 2012, Michael Steele vs Bob Ehrlich in Maryland in 2006 and Ken Blackwell vs Mike DeWine in Ohio in 2006; the minority Republican did hardly any better than the white Republican did among voters of his ethnicity.

Thinking that the Latino on the top of the ticket will earn the GOP a 40 point improvement shows your ignorance - nothing like this has EVER remotely happened before and it probably never will.

"If nominating a Latino candidate would allow the GOP to get 75% or so of the Latino vote..."

Let's just stop right there. I think the whole point of the analysis is that there's nothing the Republicans can do, short of out-Democratting the Democrats, that would win even a majority (much less 75%) of the "latino" vote. I don't think anyone here believes that nominating a "latino" candidate like Rubio or Cruz would win Republicans a majority of "latinos" any more than nominating Herman Cain would cause blacks to vote majority Republican.

Well, the only soluation for California was the so-called Southern California state without LA. Orange, San Diego, Kern Riverside wanted to have and all the inland countries wanted their own state. The federal government went against that and so did the rest of the state. Actually the Southern Califr state would have went for ROmeny since Kern and Orange and Riverside would have flipped it over.

Well Bush and REagan were the worst on immirgantion since they were border state presidents. The MExican government have worked with Texas and California to have their people sneaked into those states for decades and send money home. Oddly enough I like Romney who was not border state but who wasn't perfect on the issue. But the Republican base like Bush more because of the social issues and the fact that he spend a lot and gave big tax cuts.

We have a federal system. F-E-D-E-R-A-L. And the president already has too much power, and you want to elect him God!

Take California for example. Say one candidate gets ONE SINGLE MORE VOTE then his opponent, he wins all 55 of them.

It works the same way for the governor's office, and nobody questions his legitimacy.

What "reformers" never stop to consider is that under direct election, every state's voting laws-- or lack thereof-- must be identical. So there goes voter ID, and any other (higher) standards your state may have instituted.

A national electorate is an un-American idea. If that's what you want, again, move to France.

"wrong. i've posted about this several times now. i'm from pennsylvania, so i'm pretty sure i know this stuff. when i was considering west point, my senator endorsement was going to be from arlen specter. i saw rick santorum speak in person over 10 years ago, before anybody here heard of him."

Since Santorum was first elected to the U.S. Senate in 1994, and to the U.S. Congress four years before that, your discovery of him over a decade ago doesn't exactly make you Ferdinand Magellan.

*****

You're from Pennsylvania? Congratulations. I'm from California. So when you say your state votes "exactly" the same as my state, I know you don't know what you're talking about.

* My state hasn't had a GOP senator since 1992 - two years before your state elected Santorum to the first of two consecutive terms.

* My state has less than 30 percent of the electorate registered as Republicans.

* My state has had three Republicans elected to the eight state offices (governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general, insurance commissioner, etc.) over the last decade, and only one of those was for a major office. Not one Republican currently serves in any of those eight offices.

* My state's Democratic Party has a two-thirds super majority in the state legislature, giving them effective and total control of the state.

Those are just a few of the details. I could go on. But I shouldn't need to. You're simply wrong to say that our states vote exactly the same.

"in presidential elections however, pennsylvania always votes for the democrat now. please, spare me the numbers. how is it that if the numbers are kind of close, the state goes democrat 6 times in a row? statistically, wouldn't it have gone red once by now if the numbers were kind of close?

flip a coin 6 times, odds of it coming up tails 6 times in a row is 1 in 64. so what you're saying is that if we flip this pennsylvania coin one more time in 2016, it will come up heads? nah. it's gonna come up tails again."

Your analogy is flawed.

Labeling Pennsylvania a swing state does not mean it has an equal chance to vote for either of the two candidates in every election. There are right-leaning swing states (North Carolina) and left-leaning swing states (Nevada).

Nor does labeling Pennsylvania a swing state in 2008 mean it was a swing state in 1996. The political tendencies of a state electorate are subject to constant change. Look at California, which does not at all resemble the state it was in 1992.

If nominating a Latino candidate would allow the GOP to get 75% or so of the Latino vote without losing too much of the White vote, then they could pick up California and Pennsylvania and win the next election. It sounds to me like you guys are more afraid of the fact that this might actually work, and that your fantasy of the Republican party as the great defender of White America would finally be dashed for good, than anything else."

You don't seem to understand - I don't give a s**t about the well-being of the Republican party. I don't root for them to win like they were a college football team. It's not a damned game. I only want them to win in so far as they are able to do something for white interests. If they can't, or won't, screw them.

A latino presidential candidate would signal the GOP's whole-hearted endorsement of "immigration reform", i.e. amnesty. The only way the GOP could appeal to a majority of latinos would be by doing things that are hostile to the interests of whites.

The way to have someone represent you is by having someone who represents you, not who takes your vote for granted and then screws you over. If the Republicans don't want to be a white party, the white party, then to Hell with them.

Yes, I am quite aware of that. The Democrats get enormous amounts of publicity for free; just about every sitcom, every cop show, every episode of SNL, is an advertisement for the Democratic party. Even then, however, the Democrats still feel the need to spend on politicial advertising, and not a little. At the very least, they have to broadcast the names of their candidates so that their voters know whom to vote for. All that would become a lot easier for them, if they only had to worry about the large population centers / media markets that they easily dominate.

I think it's more accurate to say that the media is mostly drawn from the establishment. That means they are liberal in some ways (pro gay marriage, say) but not in others (they're usually pretty pro-war, at least until things start turning sour or dragging on a long time.). In some ways, they are arguably pretty conservative--the MSM is mostly quite hostile to drug legalization, about as dismissive of Occupy type protesters as Tea Party type protesters, both news coverage and popular entertainment spins things heavily in favor of trust in the cops and prosecutors, etc.

The MSM supports Obama or Clinton style liberalism, but not, say, the kind you see/hear on Democracy Now or from Dennis Kuchinich or Alan Grayson.

As a funny reflection of Steve's anecdote about winning the critical Sikh vote in Florida in 2000, this article talks about Obama's 3:1 advantage among the 5% or so of the voters who self-identify as gay, and talking about how critical this group is for getting elected.

Of course, if we can just get these gays and lesbians to marry, have kids, and buy houses, they will presumably start voting Republican. (And I'm only half kidding there--a married lesbian couple raising a couple of kids probably shares a lot of the same concerns I have, perhaps more than a childless two-income family living in the city.)

A number of people have commented on my post about just having a direct vote for the president. To me the general viewpoint that it can't be done because vote-counting is too corrupt in America is very disturbing and a very poor augury for the country.

"by the way, it looks like mitt romney will end up with more votes than john mccain. mccain got 59.9 million votes in 2008, and romney is at 59.9 million votes and still climbing as the counting goes on. so much for the meme about voters staying home." - Population growth.

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